A blog for information on good indian movies with focus on parallel cinema.

Sunday, October 15, 2006

Paithrukam(Heritage) - Malayalam 1993

This is a classic case of Clash of Ideologies. How important is ideologies in one's life?.How far should one go for his ideologies?. Are Ideologies more important than love?.The movie throws various questions through a beautiful and different story with an awesome screenplay.The movie also has good music and acting. This is, i would say is one of those must watch movies.

A namboodari(Narendra prasad), who is a high priest in a temple, has two sons.Bhanu(Jayaram) and soma dattan(Suresh Gopi).The namboodari is a very orthodox guy, who performs yaga's and poojas.His first son soma dattan is a reporter in New delhi and his second son is with him and he is a priest at the same temple.

Soma Dattan leaves delhi and comes back to his home town for good. But the family realizes that he has changed. Slowly we come to know that soma dattan is a staunch communist and an atheist. He is against blind beliefs , customs and he opposes even his father on those issues. Because of the difference he moves out of the house, marries another fellow atheist and starts living in a house, that the villagers believes is haunted.

There are two separate threads of how soma dattan's atheist wife changes and his brother's love affair, and how, in both the cases customs and blind belief's becomes a problem.

On the main story, the villagers request the namboothari to perform a yaga to bring rain to the rainless village.The namboothari agrees, soma dattan starts an agitation against it as he thinks it is a blind belief.

On the yaga day he challenges his father and tells him that he should become an atheist if it does not rain.The father agrees. Did it rain??is the rest of the story.

You might take different side or view than what the director has portrayed. But if you consider the whole thing as just a story and get within the realm of the story.This is a wonderful movie.The movie is not about which ideology is right and which is wrong. It is beyond that, it is about the fact that love is above all of them.

During a talk between the father and son.Soma dattan says that he believes that a man has progressed from a primitive hunting tribe who roamed like animals to what he is know, because of questioning everything and thinking on his own, and customs and traditions stops a man from questioning things and thinking on his own.He says heis taking everyone back to the old ages by all the traditional practices His father simply replies that iam not doing anything that will cause an harm to anyone. Iam doing everything on the belief that it will bring good to them.

Analysis:***************spoilers*******************

Before soma dattan leaves the house the father and son have a talk and then the Nambothari says that soma duttan will return to this house one day,when he has understood everything.

In the climax after the yaga, it actually rains and it rains like hell.Soma Dattan is stunned.He just cannot believe it.But he concedes and goes to his house to ask for his father’s forgiveness. But he goes to the house only to see his father immolating himself.The movie ends with soma dattan carrying on his father's priestly duties.

The big question here is why did the namboothari commit suicide?.Through out the movie, the namboothari has been a good father, He has been trying to balance both his beliefs and being a good father. At the end when his son after all his emotional talks and agitations loses because of the rain. The father is the one who is more sad, he does not want to see his defeated son, a broken soul.Hence he commits suicide. By these acts he shows how much he has loved his son.

The characters are done well. The namboothari and somma dattan are the stead fast ones.Gayathri is the opportunist and bhanu, is more for his brothers love than ideology.Actually Bhanu is the one who suffers the most on this.

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Cast and Credits:

Geetha - GayathriSuresh Gopi - Soma Dattan Jayaram -Bhanu

Music:The movie has excellent music.Music is by S.P.Venkatesh.The songs are all classical based with Yesudoss rendering them beautifully.

i have also heard that the director - barathan actually did the pooja "varshakameshti" in real. and it actually rained when the pooja was about to end. and the heavy rain that you see in movie is for real.

Have you ever wondered that there is a rational explanation behind the occurrence of rains at the end of 'athirathram'?It could be because of the fact that soot particulates produced during yaga floated to the upper atmosphere where they expedited the condensation of vapor into rain drops.